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Concorde crash leads to court
Lebanon News.Net
Friday 4th July, 2008
An Air France Concorde aircraft which crashed in 2000, killing 113 people, is the subject of a court case in the US, for which people are to stand trial for manslaughter.
US airline Continental and two of its employees will stand trial over the crash, as will a former French civil aviation official and two senior members of the Concorde program.
The New York-bound Concorde crashed in a ball of fire shortly after take-off from Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris on July 25, 2000, killing all 109 people on board and four workers on the ground.
A French accident inquiry concluded in December 2004 that the disaster was partly caused by a strip of metal that fell on the runway from a Continental Airlines DC-10 plane that took off just before the supersonic airliner.
The Concorde ran over the metal strip, which shredded one of its tyres, causing a blow-out and sending debris flying into an engine and a fuel tank.
Continental Airlines is charged over a failure to properly maintain the aircraft along with two US employees.
The former Concorde officials from France, as well as the aviation boss are also accused of failing to detect and set right faults on the supersonic aircraft, thought to have contributed to the crash.
The Concorde had suffered 67 tyre blowouts or wheel damage during its 27 years of service, piercing the fuel tanks in seven cases.
The trial will begin next year.
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Comments on this story
Anonymous
07-04-08, 07:23 AM |
Concorde crash leads to court
Until proper prosecutions of Airlines and manufacturers are made they will always ignore the expensive safety and maintenance improvements they can make until the court cases are more costly.
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